


24

by cutiekirishima



Category: Original Work
Genre: 24 - Freeform, 24 hours to live, 3rd person, Anxiety, Astronomy, Eventual Character Death, Time based, bucketlist, life and death, running out of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 01:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13870647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutiekirishima/pseuds/cutiekirishima
Summary: The strip on the boy’s hand keeps ticking, slowly, steadily, carefully. I’ve gotten used to it by now. The familiar ticking calms me, soothes me, almost. It reminds me of a metronome. It does the same to Leo, too. It means he’s still alive. His heartbeat steadies, almost keeping in time with the familiar sound.But it doesn’t change the fact that his time is coming to an end.





	24

24

Chapter 1- 11:32am.  
25 hours left until Time runs out.

The strip on the boy’s hand keeps ticking, slowly, steadily, carefully. I’ve gotten used to it by now. The familiar ticking calms me, soothes me, almost. It reminds me of a metronome. It does the same to Leo, too. It means he’s still alive. His heartbeat steadies, almost keeping in time with the familiar sound. 

But it doesn’t change the fact that his time is coming to an end. 

In the past century, a new phenomenon has appeared among humanity. The wristwatches.

But not the ones you think.   
One day, there were few people who were rushed to the hospital. There was no pattern to the people, no reason for them to be the ones who got it. There were infants, carried by terrified mothers. There were rushing businessman clutching their wrist and screaming to fix them. There were all sorts of people. But they all had the same disaster. 

Carved and placed into their wrist, was a digital strip bearing a number. The numbers were varied. And no one knew what the numbers meant. And coming from the engraved watches, were a soft, almost soothing, ticking. 

One of the victims of this was a young girl. 7, or 8 at most, with bright shining eyes and a permanent smile. One day, her mother woke her up to discover blood on her bed. She panicked and ripped off the sheets to look at her daughter. The girl was still fast asleep, but a bit of her wrist was cut, and fit almost perfectly into the cut was a black electronic strip, bearing the number 45. The strip was making a soft ticking sound, like a clock. The little girl stayed in hospital, and they tried to treat her. And after each hour that passed, the number went down by 1. 

44, 43, 42, 41. The staff tried everything, used every possible medicine they could find. 40, 39, 38. It was now that time decided to pass by in fast forward, and hours seemed to leave as quickly as they came. 37,36,35. Eventually, the number went all the way down to 0. 

And the girl was pronounced dead. 

It was quite the contrary for another patient, however. This was a quiet, 19-year-old boy who loved to tell stories. He was staying his apartment, but when we woke, he saw the bed coated in a rich crimson. Blood. Once he discovered the blood was coming from his hand and saw the strip among it, he called the ambulance. The electronic strip was bearing the number “112”. Before he could even hang up, he collapsed out of blood loss from his wrist. As he was carried to a hospital bed, he whispered to the nurse. “Please, I don’t want to die,” He whimpered, his voice barely audible. “I’ve-I’ve been waiting, for so long. The result is coming and I need to know. I can’t die until I do. Please, please don’t let me die!” He was sobbing now, crystal tears running down his cheeks. “Ok sweetie, don’t worry. What do you need to know?” The nurse replied, shaken by the boy. “It-It’s my, m-my mum.” He sniffed, calming a bit. “She-she has been through trouble with my dad’s friend. And they h-hit her, they h-hit her a lot. They were going to tell me whether she’d be ok.” and with a whimper, the tears returned, louder than ever. The boy started to uncontrollably sob. “It’s ok, it’s ok sweetie, it’ll be ok..” The nurse kept on repeating, like a mantra, almost trying to believe the words herself.

And as each minute passed, the boy’s number went down by 1. They were running out of time. 9. 8. 7. He wasn’t fighting now, he heard what happened to the girl and accepted his fate. 6, 5, 4. The doctor felt their heart shatter, longing to take care of the boy. 3…..2…...1. He closed his eyes. 

Suddenly, a bandaged, middle-aged woman burst through the door. “Luka! Oh, Luka!” She cried, throwing her arms around Leo. She shared the same fawn hair and almond eyes as Luka, so the nurse assumed this was his mum. Luka’s eyes opened and immediately filled with tears. “Mum, Mum! Mum! You’re ok!” They were both sobbing now, holding each other so tight, as if they were scared to let go. And the number 1 on Luka’s wrist had changed to 0, then disappeared. 

Now, about 24% of the population have the strip on their hand. It can show up anytime in your life, and to anyone. There is no genetic pattern, it wasn’t a contagious disease. The same thing happens to everyone who receives it. They wake up with a bleeding wrist, and placed in the cut is an electronic strip. But, scientists were able to uncover some data from studying the strip. It turns out, that each strip has a path programmed. When the strip is placed, the data is then transferred into the body, and your fate is sealed. This path can be various things, but all paths divide into two categories. Good and bad. 

The good can vary from getting your dream job, or getting a date with the person you love, or even winning the lottery. 

And the bad can vary from getting expelled, failing your exam and even death. 

But one leads to a good part of your life, another leads to a bad. Now, from studying the strips, scientists are able to tell which category path is programmed into you. There is still one mystery, however. 

The units of the number. 

The number can stand for minutes, seconds, months, years, decades. Nobody knows. You can only tell once time starts to pass, and numbers start to decrease. 

Most people believed it was a blessing to receive the strip. They saw it as a “gift” (or a “blessing”). Others believed it was a curse, and that anyone who received it was confounded and would be shunned for all eternity. People began to make stories that hidden creature appeared and was the one who gave those people the strip. It eventually was given a name, the figure behind it all. 

This has still continued to this day, and still to this day, no one knows why.   
So, sit back, relax, and let me tell you the story of a boy. A boy, named Leo. 

Now, Leo was no less than a regular person. He did go to school, he did act like all the other kids he sees, but like any other chosen person, this boy has a deeper secret which is the reason why he was targeted. This boy, too, has something about him that attracts the curse. Aah, see. 

Scientist don’t know this, but there IS a reason behind it! There is a reason why people are chosen, and why it’s only certain people who get the strip. There is something inside the person, a deep darker side of the person that chills others to the bone. 

Every human has two sides. Every human has more than one path they can choose to take. Everyone has a darker side. For every shine of light, there is always darkness to balance that. Like yin and yang, like light and dark, like black and white. For ivory white and midnight black go together like friends. One is needed for the other to exist. Without a hidden dark side, a person simply would not exist. 

But only some choose to embrace it. 

The worse that dark side of the person, and the more potential damage of the person’s choices, the greater the programming in the strip. The programmed part of the strip simply stops that person from choosing that dark potential path. They do this by either distracting them with joy, for if they are happy, they have no reason to choose that path. Or they can do this by breaking them to pieces with sorrow. It just depends how they decide to distract you. 

And if it’s not possible to stray them from their dark path, they’re programmed to be eliminated. 

How do I know this, you say? That is a story for another time.

Now that I’ve given you the history, let’s head to the present, shall we? 

It is currently 11:00 PM On the 24th of October, 2024 in a crowded American city. 

And in a towering apartment that seems to reach the sun itself, lives a teenage boy. A regular, teen boy who goes to school, and has food every day, lives his life like a normal person. He had midnight black hair with a bluish tint and piercing blue eyes. He was always smiling, and his crystal blue eyes always seemed to be mischievously twinking. But, behind those capturing eyes are a deeper story. 

It was early in the morning, and this boy was fast asleep awaiting the new day. But little did he know that during his peaceful slumber, fate was awaiting for its chance to strike, like a lion hunting its prey. And during the late hour of 11:32, fate attacked. Leo awoke with a jolt, and felt a piercing pain coming from his left hand, and heard a soft, slow ticking. He held his shaking hand to his face, his crystal eyes wide and stripped of all joy, and all that took over those eyes were fear. 

His wrist was cut, and from the cut blossomed deep red blood traveling down his wrist like water through a stream and dripping onto his bed, staining his sheets scarlet. In the cut, there was an electronic strip perfectly placed. But oddly enough, the strip bared no number. 

Leo ran out of his room at the speed of light, not bothering to change and ran to his house phone. His fingers could barely tap the numbers on his phone; they were shaking too much. He pressed in the emergency number set by the government in case anyone received a strip. The ring of the phone seemed to be continuing for hours, until finally, finally, someone picked up. 

“Hello, emergency services here. How can I help you?” 

“Umm-yes, hi there.” Leo stuttered, barely able to talk.   
How am I supposed to say this? He thought to himself. You see, talking on the phone to others might not seem like a big deal, but not for this young man. See, he suffers from anxiety. To anyone with anxiety, it’s the worst. Want to order a pizza? Too bad. Hey, got a good question you want to ask in class? Forget about it, mate. Hey, you want to go up to this person and talk to them, but they’re with people you don’t know? Not happening, sorry.

So yeah. It sucks. 

But, he pulled it together, even though his thoughts were screaming and one million “What if?” scenarios were flooding through his mind and making the situation 100X worse. This was an emergency, and he couldn’t let this hold him back as it had done for most of his life. 

“Miss, I-I really need help. This morning, I woke up with my wrist cut, and in the cut w-was the strip. The strip we were all warned about. Please help me.” Leo raced, letting out the held back words at the speed of light in order to get the talking out of the way. Luckily, the lady on the phone understood his rushed words. 

“Yes, ok. We’ll be sending someone right over to go get you. For the moment, do not touch your hand and do not put water near the strip to avoid electrocution. Take a small hand towel, and put the medicine we have in every house on your hand to stop the bleeding and hold it there for 10 seconds. Take a break, and then repeat it 3 more times. You got that, Mister?

Leo was listening intently and was repeating the instructions over and over in his mind. “Yes Miss, thank you very much.” He hung up the phone and began searching for the medicine. While doing that, he couldn’t help the thoughts rushing through his mind. But one stood through the rest.

Why me? What did I do?

Ah, yes, because Leo and everyone else who received the strip remembered the most common path. Death.

Death, the most feared and uncontrollable end. The end of the line. The last page of a storybook. Nothing in the universe can escape death. No phenomenon, no one creature that is rumored to have eternal life. Whether the lifespan is one year or one million, the end eventually will come. No matter how long a movie is, there will always eventually be an end. No matter how incredibly long a story is, there will be the last page, the last sentence, the last word. Try to escape it and you will only fail. It is inescapable, unforgivable, unforgettable. It is the greatest evil, yet the greatest beauty. 

It can take the closest person to you and snatch them away, never to let them return, only for you to join them. It can destroy millions of people forever. But, before creation always comes destruction. Even the Earth itself was created from a mass collision. Life cannot exist without Death, and Death cannot exist without life. Death steals away the other, so in return, Life gives its gift to a new person. Why death is so feared, I’m not sure. For they balance each other out, yet one is despised and feared. 

Perhaps that’s why more lives are getting taken.

And this boy will be one of them.

The emergency service soon arrived, almost calm from going through this procedure so many times. Leo was sat down in an ambulance and drove to a certain type of hospital specifically for this. He was taken to an examination room, where he was sat down by a tall doctor, surrounded by some others. He took Leo’s hand and began to examine it, using various pieces of equipment. After about 15 minutes of this, his eyes widened and he called over some of the assistants, whose faces stripped of colour after they heard the news. As they sat Leo down after the examination ended, Leo’s heart was racing, his mouth was dry and his blue eyes were wide and overrun by fear. I think deep down he knew what they were going to say, but he didn’t want to accept it. But that didn’t hide the truth or making it any less true. The doctor ran his hands through his hair, sighing, feeling deep pity for this boy’s cruel fate. 

“Ok, son. We’ve completed the examination of the strip.” He informed, keeping himself professional to hide the sadness he felt for Leo. “We were able to identify the path programmed into your strip, even though yours didn’t have a number.” Leo paused, and he felt that everything stopped as he awaited the answer. 

“I’m sorry son, but you’re going to die.”

Even though he had predicted the news, it was still a shock to him. Leo choked on his breath and began to hyperventilate. His thoughts began to race, and his vision blurred No. Not again. Not again! 

But he couldn’t control it. 

His vision started to blur, and it felt like something huge pushing him down, refusing to let him move. Leo took his head between his hands and put them between his legs.

“Sir? Sir! Are you ok?” 

He could hear the voices of the frantic doctors, but they seemed farther away, and softer. His eyes started to water and he held his head even tighter between his hands. His breathing was rapidly speeding up, and his crystal eyes were wide as if he saw a ghost. His heart was pounding so loud, it was as if he could hear it throughout the entire body. His thoughts were all gone, or rather, they were too many, that he couldn’t think at all. He could feel the piercing gaze of all the doctors in the room looking at him, and giving each other worried side eyes. He didn’t want people looking at him. It just made everything worse. All he wanted to do, and all his body was telling him to do was run. But he couldn’t. It was like something was holding him down, as if someone was smirking as they stopped his movements, a kind of “Don’t even try, it’s not going to work”. 

After what seemed like an eternity, the attack finally came to an end. 

The doctors were extremely concerned, and as they all were doctor, they knew what had happened to Leo from the symptoms of the attack. 

The main one examining him, Dr. Markello, sat down and calmly spoke. 

“Son, are you ok?” He asked, extremely concerned. 

Leo still had his head in his hands, but his breathing was starting to slow. He slowly lifted up his hands, embarrassed now having the doctors have witnessed the attack.

“Y-yes, s-sir. I’m sorry..” He replied.

“No, no, son. Don’t apologize.” Dr. Markello answered, speaking in a soothing, soft voice to attempt to make Leo feel better. “Is this the first time that’s happened?”

“No, sir. But it usually isn’t this bad.” 

“That’s ok, son. I understand. The news would’ve shocked you a lot, which caused that. You’re ok now, don’t worry.” Dr. Markello reassured, awkwardly patting Leo on the back. While doing so, he got a glimpse of the strip on Leo’s wrist. It was acting up, glitching bright green particles, as if attempting to draw a number. It was extremely out of the ordinary for the doctors.

“Dr Markello..” One of the female doctors pointed, gesturing to the wrist strip. He nodded in return.   
“Son, I know this isn’t the right time, but something’s happening to your wrist,” Markello explained, immediately regretting it. But, to his surprise, Leo looked startled and jolted up as if the attack never happened at all. 

“What’s happened with it? Did it change?” Leo frantically asked, his crystal eyes wide. The thought of his fate sent a shiver down Leo’s spine, and he was still shaking from the anxiety attack. He couldn’t help but think, had he done something wrong to deserve this fate? Why would his life, something he took for granted every day as he assumed he’d live a normal life, be taken away? Why should a precious gift be snatched so early? A storybook closed so soon? Why?

Well, the world is a cruel place, dear boy, and you of many others are the few to truly experience its mercilessness. 

Markello took Leo’s wrist in his hand and slowly examined it. The strip was glitching, was out of control and green sparks emerged every so often that was quite difficult to avoid. It was nothing like Markello had ever seen before. It was kind of shocking, to be honest.

It the midst of chaos, Leo looked down at his wrist. It was still glitching. But, as soon as he glanced down the strip began to frantically rearrange, going through thousands of numbers. He looked up in shock at the doctors, but to them, nothing else was happening. It was only through his vision that he could see what was happening. 

And then the numbers slowed, and the ticking returned, and the numbers were coming to a halt. It was agonizing waiting for the number that would confirm his fate, shape and form the way his future was getting. And then the watch finally stopped, and the number chosen was 24. 

Leo freaked out. He held up his wrist to them, but the number was gone. Even in his vision. “I swear, I swear on my life I saw the number 24. Please, please you have to believe me!” Leo cried, pleading with everything he had. But it was no use. The number was gone. Never to be seen again. 

But, the number was forever implanted in Leo’s mind. 

24.

Just a single, 2 digit number. That could change his life forever. 

24.

Minutes, Hours, Days, Years, until his life comes to an end. 

Only 24. 

 

There was so much he hadn’t done, hadn’t said, hadn’t tried. So much he could accomplish.   
But the threat hovering above his life was forever going to be there.

Markello said his programmed path would most likely be hours. That’s 24 hours to live.   
1 whole day. 

The clock struck 12. 

October 24th, 2024. 12 am. 24 hours until time runs out.


End file.
